OLDaily

By Stephen Downes
July 1, 2005

Are the Basics of Instructional Design
Changing? Following what I thought was an
interesting turn of discussion on ITForum (aggregated
here) I wrote this item, first, to underscore the role
of philosophy as informing educational theory, and second,
to highlight the difference between online learning and
'traditional' distance education. I argue that the theory
of distributed representation has a profound implication
for pedagogy, as it suggests that
learning (and teaching, such as it is) is not a process of
communication, but rather, a process of immersion. Put
loosely, it suggests the idea of teaching not by telling or
even demonstrating but rather through the creation (or
identification) of an environment into which a learner may
be immersed. By Stephen Downes, Stephen's Web, July 1, 2005
[Refer][Research][Reflect]

Welcome to TagCloud.comIt was
only a matter of time. Why go to all that effort to tag
links manually when everything you need is already present
in the link. This service automates the process, courtesy
of Yahoo's content analysis web service. Except for the
Yahoo bit (I use my own algorithm) this is exactly how I
derive Edu_RSS topics.
Manual tagging? Who has the time? Via Albert
Delgado. By John Herren, June, 2005
[Refer][Research][Reflect]

RSS and Media: Can't we All Just Get
Along?Useful discussion of RSS extensions
offered by Yahoo, Microsoft and Apple to support the
distribution of multimedia content. Each is slightly
different and the author proposes something like a common
approach. Historically, when one standard is proposed to
replace three divergent standards, the result is four
divergent standards. What is demonstrated most of all,
though, is what RSS does that other metadata formats don't
seem to do: it adapts. (Note: if this link takes you to a
blank page, click on the blog home page - it seems to be
displaying some formatting issues). By Tristan Louis,
TNL.net, June 28, 2005
[Refer][Research][Reflect]

First Impression of Sakai 2.0: Better Than I
ExpectedMichael Feldstein's otherwise
innocuous review of the latest release of Sakai, an open
source learning management system (LMS), has become quite
the attraction as several Sakai developers and other
commentators have weighed into the discussion, responding
to Feldstein's criticism of the discussion tools and the
gender imbalance at the Sakai conference. Worth noting in
passing is this link to OLAT, another java-based
open source LMS, this one being developed in Switzerland.
By Michael Feldstein, e-Literate, June 21, 2005
[Refer][Research][Reflect]

Google's War on Hierarchy, and the Death of
Hierarchical FoldersRoger Casselman sends
along this link to a good analysis by John Hiler, one of
the original visionaries of personal publishing. "If you
examine Google's products closely," writes Hiler, "you may
notice a surprising pattern: Google is attempting to
organize the world's information without folders." This is
a correct analysis and a correct strategy. The use of
folders - and, indeed, any hierarchal system - breaks down
after a few million items. This is as true for search as it
is for business organizations. By John Hiler, Microcontent
News, May 10, 2005
[Refer][Research][Reflect]

Developing and Implementing a Methodology for
Reviewing E-portfolio Products
As Lisa Grey summarizes,
"The study developed a mapping template and explored a
sample of twelve e-portfolio products which exemplify the
range of existing UK systems, in terms of target learner
communities, purposes and functionalities and commercial or
non-commercial basis." The authors acknowledge in the
report that only a small sample of the available software
was considered, with the focus on those in use in Britain.
Good report, though they should turn off the update tool.
By Helen C Richardson and Rob Ward, JISC, June, 2005
[Refer][Research][Reflect]

Amazing New Software Turns Any Computer into
A TV StationThe author, referring to a Chronicle
article, introduces ACTLab
TV (aka Alluvium). I installed the demo viewer just the
other day to see how it works and was suitably impressed.
The secret to this software is that it integrates content
authoring tools with shared downloading (a lot like
BitTorrent). This puts the distribution of video content
into the hands of individuals. So far, only a demo of the
download tool is available, though release of the authoring
software is expected any day now. By Ronald M. Ayers,
Socrates Technological University, June 29, 2005
[Refer][Research][Reflect]

AppcastingIf you envision
learning objects as objects, not merely bits of
content, then this should interest you. The syndication of
multimedia content is going to get much more interesting
than people realize. Right now, the focus is on audio and
video. But as this item shows, applications will also be
syndicated. Included is a short list of several existing
appcasting feeds. Via Microcontent
Musings. By Fraser Speirs, June 29, 2005
[Refer][Research][Reflect]